DIY Home renos?

lindsayandjamie · November 2013

Who are the ladies who've talked about their DIY renos on here? DH and I have almost finished our home from top to bottom ourselves and is love to chat about it with like minded ladies.

So if you've done anything to your home yourself AW your efforts here!

ILoveRedVino · November 2013

Nothing here, but I'd love to see pictures if you feel like sharing. I loooove this stuff.

BruinsBabe33 · November 2013

We have done a lot, but I never remember to take pictures.

amandaf6383 · November 2013

We completely rehabbed our home after buying it. We're still working on it, too. Share pictures! I die over renos!

R.Wilsonny · November 2013

We haven't done anything other than painting projects around our house, but the eventual plan is to redo the kitchen and do some updating to the bathrooms (just replacing the vanitys)

ILoveRedVino · November 2013

I should add...

We haven't done home projects but we've done massive landscaping. Our house was exactly what we wanted at the time.

We will sell in the next year and move to another city. We've decided we would love a fixer in a great location. I want to get HGTV to come help (a girl can dream, right?) but H is pretty construction-handy so we should be ok.

lindsayandjamie · November 2013

I'm terrible at taking before pictures so they are usually midway pictures, but my plan is to organize my before and afters in the next few months. When I'm not on mobile I'll post a few.

@iloveredvino - show me your landscaping! I feel totally incompetent with landscaping

@amandaf6383 - pictures??

@bruinsbabe33 - describe what you've done even if you don't have pics!

We've done:
-paint in every room, now on to the second colour

- refaced the fireplace and hearth with tile
- crown and baseboards throughout
- kitchen facelift
- smoothed out all the ceilings
-installed hardwood, tile and cork throughout
- new carpet (outsourced) and windows (some us, some outsourced)
- all new lighting, light switches, plugs
- powder room new flooring, lighting, toilet, vanity and paint
- main bath gutted to the studs
- new deck
- DH built a built in media centre in the basement and we completely gutted and renoed the whole space including installing new lighting and pot lights
- we converted a window to a sliding door
- custome millwork in one of the bedrooms

Left to do:
Master bathroom
Master closet
Replace 3 windows

We are currently looking for our next house/project.

Flamingo86 · November 2013

You ladies are brave. We are about to start house-hunting and really don't want to do any renos anytime soon. We don't mind doing a bit of updating but tearing the whole place apart sounds completely terrifying!

ljraff29 · November 2013

We're in the process of renovating our entire first floor. We bought our house in April of this year. We thought it would've been just flooring, paint, and redoing the bathroom. Turns out there was a water problem, termite damage, and mold in the bathroom. So what we thought would take a couple of months has taken more like 6. Because of these setbacks we had to take down hslf of the sheet rock and install a drain around the outside of the house. We finally have the living room done, just in time to host our families for Thanksgiving. We're hoping to have the rest finished by the new year. We've also painted every other room in the house, rapainted the front doif and installed new laminate flooring in our master. Next on the list is the kitchen, our main floor bath and (hopefully) a nursery. We'll also need new windows and siding at some point too. I'm sure I can dig up or take some pics to share! Sorry this ended up being so long. Should've used bullets haha.

ljraff29 · November 2013

@iloveredvino please share you landscaping! I'd love to see it. Our house needs help. I dream about HGTV visiting to redo my house someday too

@madeline10l I guve you props for buying and gutting a foreclosure. DH and I looked at some but it always made me nervous gutting a whole house at once. Yours looks so nice!

LittleLady77 · November 2013

I have done a lot myself (hubby is useless in this department). I did paid the contractor to do the work in the kitchen, the electrical, surround sound wiring and the new windows. My work was patching and painting walls, redoing the closets, tiling the steps and back splash, staining the grout, hand-sanding and polishing a wooden bar and all the landscaping.

brij2006 · November 2013

Here's the link to my GTKY page about our house and remodel.

http://forums.thenest.com/discussion/8893313/gtky-finished-from-yesterday-house-pip-heavy#latest

We did a lot of landscaping this summer again, and I have a lot of ideas to do this spring too. This winters projects are to tear down the plaster in the spare bedroom and insulate and drywall. Then also to rip apart the den and re-do that too. Right now it has salmon colored paneling in it. Yeah, it's pretty ugly.

I also made my house album public on Facebook, and here's the link. The pictures are in order of when we did the projects, and I've just added to it over the past 4 years.

Please don't quote this link since I will delete it.

(Poof)

brij2006 · November 2013

@madeline101 Thank you. I'm with you though about it being the only full remodel you ever do. I've told H multiple times that paint and flooring are my limits on the next house. Never again do I want to re-do wiring, plumbing, plaster, etc. It's also crazy to think we will have owned the house for 5 years already, and we are STILL getting rooms done. It's been a long process.

PandPMeant2B · November 2013

Love this thread! DH and I have a home inspection today for a house that was built in 1900 (= lots of "potential"). It's mostly cosmetic work that NEEDS to be done, but we'd love to do some major renos down the road (bathroom, mater suite). If this goes through we'll definitely be taking the wallpaper down (it's in almost every room and hideous), painting, and getting new counter tops (at least) in the kitchen. The basement is half finished and has a totally 70's bar (not the cool retro look; orange counter top with brown, yellow, orange, and red floral wallpaper), so that's definitely on our list to update too. It also needs some serious landscaping. I'm excited to get the ball rolling!

brij2006 · November 2013

@pandpmeant2b If you have a lot of wallpaper, I highly highly recommend buying a steamer and using that to take it off. We started off with just putty knives and fabric softener. It took forever, and didn't come completely off.

PandPMeant2B · November 2013

brij2006 said:

@pandpmeant2b If you have a lot of wallpaper, I highly highly recommend buying a steamer and using that to take it off. We started off with just putty knives and fabric softener. It took forever, and didn't come completely off.

Definitely! DH's family has one that they share, so it will definitely be in our possession soon! The walls in this house are plaster, so it was also suggested we just sheetrock over the wallpaper. We might do that in the bedrooms, but I think it will cause, rather than save headaches in some of the rooms.

ILoveRedVino · November 2013

Ffc- I like wallpaper.

I can't PIP but we basically had a yard full of Japanese plants. Not our style. We ripped it all out, built a retaining wall and put in stuff we liked. That description is not doing it justice- it took months of really physical work. H lost almost 30 lbs.

RockABye · November 2013

We're still in progress right now, but we've done a major overhaul on the house we bought in July. H and I both come from a long line of DIYers, woodworkers, and homebuilders, so we refuse to pay to have someone do anything we are fully capable of doing. We've basically done a $50K+ reno job on about $12K. The only thing we hired out was putting the granite countertop in.

We tore out 75% of the flooring and put in new wood floors (which also included MAJOR leveling work with the flow fill concrete and hours spent grinding down concrete... it was a MESS and so much work.. our bedroom was sloping by 2 inches so it HAD to be done), painted almost every single room in the house (living room painted twice b/c I couldn't decide on color) except 2.. one of which will be painted over Christmas, tore out several walls, put in a support beam, completely gutted the kitchen, jackhammered a trench to redo the plumbing in the kitchen, lots of electrical work, re-tiled, we're in the process of finishing out the kitchen now but were derailed for a couple weeks due to some medical stuff. We have cabinet bases built with the drawers and stuff, but we still haven't built the cabinet doors and drawer fronts and still need to put in our backsplash. We also took out the wetbar and converted the area to a piano nook. I KNOW i'm forgetting something, but I can't think of it now...

We still have some work to do to finish it out, but we're getting there.We also plan to completely redo the bathrooms but just haven't gotten there yet. Maybe next year as they're functional (just 80's ugly) right now. I also want to remove the popcorn (or put plank ceilings in), but it's not a huge priority at the moment. Our next major project will probably be doing a complete resurface on the pool deck and backyard.

It's been SO fun!! I'll see if I can find some pics, but I haven't taken any lately so they don't show too much.

RockABye · November 2013

Brij - I love all the architectural details in your home and love that you preserved much of it! You did a great job!

PandPMeant2B · November 2013

@Brij2006 - I can't believe how beautiful your house is; you did such an awesome job on everything! I only hope ours looks as good after we're done working on it. How long did it take you to get to this point?

Sewilson33 · November 2013

We gutted out entire house... It has been a 2 year long process and we are almost finished.
We knocked down almost every wall except for the load bearing wall
We put in a whole new kitchen
redid the wood floors,
turned a bedroom into a dining room by removing a wall and closet
Turned the 2 bedrooms upstairs into a master suite and knocked down the wall in the middle to connect them.
Took out basement and did spray foam and walls and created 2 bedrooms, den, laundry room, full bath and shop, with a walk out door.
We dug up our backyard so that the basement was move of a walk out and put in a patio overlooking the pong.

We went from 3 beds 1 bath all on one floor to 3 beds 3 baths on 2 floors.

Our next project is a garage.

At the moment our house is a mess and my bedroom is a storage room so it is just hell on earth.

brij2006 · November 2013

@pandpmeant2bWe will have owned the house for 5 years on February 5th. We didn't live in it for the first 6 months and at that time we did most of the demolition, plumbing, and wiring. We have done everything ourselves except the new windows on the 2nd floor, and the seamless gutters. So it's been a long process of working on it after work and on the weekends.

If you have any questions, feel free to PM me. I'm always willing to share what we have done, the process, and answer questions. Buying a very old home is definitely a huge undertaking, but the reward after things get finished is worth it.

cloudymeatballs · November 2013

Our house is in definite need of some work. I wish we could add on. Lol, H doesn't want to. We have painted all of the walls, i want to redo it and do darker walls, but as of now, they are fine. I just painted the kitchen a month ago, and the bathroom about 6 months prior. There is sooo much I want to do to the house, H wants to wait on it. He isn't very handy so that is not one of his strong traits. I want to fix the kitchen, have this space where I want to put a breakfast nook. All I need is to put in some benches and get a cute round table. The front of the house I want to put brick and extend our porch. Seems pretty easy... I love our hardwood floors, so that works. I guess just a little bit at a time.

@brij2006 I love your home. OMG I LOVE the Staircase! Gorgeous! I want a big house...I am jealous of you girls with your huge homes, large lots, beautiful architectured homes. Oh and your basements, you girls get basements too! Lol oh the difference of living in SO Cal.. haha But again, girl beautiful work!!!

PandPMeant2B · November 2013

Thanks, @brij2006! if this deal goes through, we close in the beginning of January. Our lease on our current house isn't up until the end of March, so at least we'll have a few months to do some work before we move. This isn't our forever home (we probably won't be living here more than 5-7 years), so it doesn't have to be perfect for us, but we'll definitely make some major improvements and hopefully make a nice profit! As long as nothing major comes up in the inspection, we're getting a pretty good deal! I very well may have to reach out to you for some tips!

brij2006 · November 2013

@pandpmeant2b Good luck with your offer. I hope the inspection comes back with no major hiccups, and you get the house!

ljraff29 · November 2013

@brij2006 Your house is beautiful! I love the character older homes have and you did a great job adding modern touches while keeping the character. Someday DH and I would love to get an old house and do a huge reno. You and your DH did a really nice job!

brij2006 · November 2013

Thanks girls. We have really grown to love our house now that we've remodeled it. It was only supposed to be a "5 year" home for us, and then we wanted to move out to the country or get something more modern. Now we discuss doing the full kitchen remodel and adding 2 more stalls onto the garage, and staying here for 20+ more years.

Do any of you other girls have pictures?
@amandaf6383 @lindsayandjamie @ljraff29 @littlelady77 @rockabye @sewilson33

RockABye · November 2013

I have a whole bunch of pics, but hardly have any here at work. And I don't have any finished pics because, well, we're not finished. Here's a few though. I'll be DDing these later. We've since painted everything too so ignore paint colors. We updated most of the light fixtures but still have a ways to go. We also still need to put in the can lights in the kitchen. SO MUCH TO DO!!! But we've come a LONG way.

This is looking into the kitchen from the living room before. It wasn't tooo awful, but was very 1980 with original appliances and everything... and nothing worked lol. We mostly just opened stuff up and are in process of a complete kitchen renovation. I actually love all the paneling in the living room! Oh and we ripped up all the carpet because of my allergies. It was in really good shape though so my parents took it and put it in their upstairs lol

*poof*

During. We've since finished painting walls, floors are in, and trim is mostly done and painted (all white now). Kitchen is functional now, but not complete by any means. You can also see the additional pantry we built. Nothing fancy, but it does the job.

*poof*

Dining room wall we took out, before pic.

*poof*

During - in the dining room, looking towards the kitchen and living

*poof*

Leveling the bedroom. They ended up doing over half the room because it was so bad. Then they had to grind on the floors here and elsewhere to level even more which created the biggest dust storm I've ever seen.

*poof*

The wood floors right after we peeled up the tape. I LOVE them. We have them in the living, dining, entry, hallway, and master.

*poof*

brij2006 · November 2013

@rockabye You have done an amazing job! I can't believe you had to level out the floors, and can't even imagine that dust mess.

Your hardwood floors turned out beautiful, and the openess to the kitchen makes it look so modern.

cloudymeatballs · November 2013

@rockabye i love the paneling! And your floors, wow they turned out beautiful!! And i love how it looks after you opened up the kitchen wall. Looks awesome!!

Sewilson33 · November 2013

These are some on my phone. The house is still under massive construction.

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